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It used to be that cable companies were known for poor customer service.
Mobile carriers were more sensitive to competition. Cable hasn't really
improved. But T-Mobile this year has gone from top-shelf to subterranean
in service quality. Hence this tale of woe.

I recently moved my office, and I need to keep the phone number. Last
time I needed to move phone numbers to a neighboring rate center, this
past summer, I switched them to Google Voice, which forwards them to
wherever I want, including "invisible" numbers in the new physical rate
center. But you can't move a wireline number to Google Voice directly.
They just don't allow it. So the trick is to port the number to a mobile
carrier, then to Google. And everybody says T-Mobile is the easiest
mobile carrier to work with -- no contracts, no minimums, and easy SIMs
for sale. Last summer, it worked perfectly. I got a cheap unlocked
phone, got a SIM from T-M, ported in the number, forwarded the phone to
the proper destination, then a few days later let Google Voice port it
over. I had a little confusion with T-M over the no-data rate plan
price, but it got fixed.

I tried again last week and it was an entirely different situation. I
made one mistake, asking for prepaid. Turns out you can't forward calls
from a prepaid phone, though you can port it out again. However, T-M
made a HUGE error. The number they put on the shiny new SIM was one that
was in collection -- the previous owner was behind on a postpaid bill,
so whenever I tried to enter the number into T-M's phone jail, it got
diverted to a recording giving the collection agency's address! I spent
FOUR HOURS on the phone trying to get past that, but finally gave up,
went back to the store, and swapped the SIM for another, with a clean
number on it. And yes, Ms. Jackson, they did reveal the (CPNI) name of
the previous number holder.

Problem two is that T-M's support for prepaid is execrable. They have
two prepaid programs, "Legacy" and "Rebellion". New cards are in the
latter class. And they presumably think that prepaid customers are all
deadbeats anyway, so talking to a rep takes 45 minutes on hold if you
get through at all.

But with a clean number, I initiated a number port. I showed the old
phone bill, with address and account number, to the store clerk. That
was a Thursday. Ports from cable to mobile usually take one day (as did
my last two ports). But by this morning (Sunday), no response. So I call
in. Oh, the port was REJECTED by the old carrier, because the ZIP code
was wrong. Instead of my (old) ZIP code, they had put down the one for
Dorchester Center, where I'm guessing one of the store clerks lived. And
if there are ANY mismatches, the port fails. I asked them to resubmit
with the right ZIP; I have to wait for a response.

So after a couple of hours of no feedback, I have the store replace my
Rebellion SIM with a postpay one (credit check, ID check, etc.). And I
ask for the port to be restarted to the postpaid account. It takes a
while, but eventually it goes in to the system and I'm supposed to hear
back within a couple of hours.

Hearing nothing, I call in to the T-M porting center (1 877 789 3106).
The person there tells me that he will be the LAST one I'll need to
speak to, he'll get it all fixed. And waddayaknow, the port that I had
reinitiated this afternoon, to the postpaid account, had a DIFFERENT
wrong ZIP code on it! They replaced the "from" ZIP code with my new T-M
bill-to ZIP code. So he thinks he fixed it.

As night wears on, I call in again. Now the number is "stuck". The
original Rebellion port, rejected, is hanging up the number. And the
first guy on the phone sees yet another, nonexistent, ZIP code, which
that "last" guy might have left there. It takes two transfers and again
over an hour on the phone to Porting to get to someone who thinks he can
override that. And it takes him a while to get the right ZIP code. So
he's initiating yet another new request for a port.

At this point it's just waiting... and hoping that I can get RCN to keep
the number alive after I've left the site where the EMTA is. I will
leave it in place, the line forwarded, and hope that the landlord hasn't
got a new tenant coming right in. I've spent many hours on the phone
with T-M this week and it convinces me that the company has really
jumped the shark. They used to be the easiest to work with. None of
their phone employees are in the US (all in Guatemala and Phillipines)
and most just don't seem to care. They will "stay on the line" with you
while transferring you to endless hold, taking more calls to keep up
their scores. It's a mess. John Legere should be ashamed. He should be
paying attention to his company, not writing cookbooks.

Ironically, this all pointed to a bug in my VZW service. Someone from
T-M porting called me back and I just missed getting my Verizon
Blackberry to answer on time. I did not see a voice mail, though they
later told me they left one. Turns out that Verizon VM to the Blackberry
KeyONE doesn't work any more! A security fix broke the message waiting
indicator. I found the fix on Crackberry. It required a call to VZ and a
level of escalation to second-level support, to change the VM to "basic
IMS", not "visual IMS", which no longer works on that model. But the
second-level support person in the midwestern US knew how to do that,
fixed it, and made a test call, I got the message, and all's well with
VZ after a 15-minute call. That's support, and one reason (beside the
fact that the signal is much better!) why I stick with VZW even though I
don't touch VZ wireline.